Last week I unfortunately found myself spending time in hospital with my poorly mother.
It is not a place any of us ever plan to visit. It is not a diary entry you look forward to writing. And yet there I was, perched on a horribly uncomfortable plastic chair with a lukewarm cup of tea, watching one of the most extraordinary theatres of human life unfold around me.
It struck me that hospitals are where the highest highs and the lowest lows exist side by side. In one room, a couple are meeting their newborn for the first time, exhausted and emotional. In another, a doctor is explaining that the scan is clear and the treatment has worked.
And then, just metres away, a family are being told there is nothing more that can be done. A husband is holding his wife’s hand for the last time. Someone has just had their entire world turned upside down in a single sentence.
No attraction, no event, no brand experience will ever come close to that level of emotional intensity.
Hospitals are not just buildings. They are emotional pressure cookers, places where time moves differently, where everything tastes strange and the smallest details suddenly matter more than anything else in the world.
The whole experience got me thinking that from a destination perspective, a hospital is fascinating.
It has arrivals and departures, flow and bottlenecks, queues, dwell time, signage, cafés and first and last impressions that people will remember forever.
The major difference is that nobody chooses to book a two-night getaway at Yeovil General Hospital. (The waiting time at reception was frankly ridiculous and the food did not exactly help the recovery process.)
Visitor attractions exist to create anticipation. They sell joy, excitement and escapism. A hospital manages inevitability. People arrive frightened, tired, confused and vulnerable, but the principles of experience design are exactly the same.
People need to feel safe.
They need to feel guided.
They need to feel seen.
And when emotions are running that high, the smallest details become enormous.
A confusing sign can push someone over the edge, while a kind receptionist can change the entire tone of a day. A nurse who takes the time to explain what is happening can restore a sense of control, and a volunteer offering a cup of tea can feel like the most important person in the building.
That is not service. That is brand.
Visitor attractions spend millions trying to manufacture emotion. Hospitals deal with the real thing, unfiltered, twenty-four hours a day. And in doing so, they quietly demonstrate what truly great destinations are built on.
Not spectacles.
Not gimmicks.
Not Instagram moments.
But trust.
Reassurance.
Human connection.
Attractions talk endlessly about fun and escapism. But the destinations that really cut through are the ones that make people feel looked after, understood and part of something.
Hospitals do not sell joy.
They sell hope.
And hope, it turns out, is the most powerful destination proposition of all.
Sitting there with my mum, watching families move through those corridors, I realised you are seeing the most honest version of what this industry is really about.
Destinations are not places.
They are moments.
They are memories.
And some of the most important ones happen in the last place any of us would ever choose to visit.